Crystal
A great challenge I face in life is rediscovering the joy within myself. I have often pondered the many mirrors that exist within our singular bodies, and how they reflect back to us. Sometimes they don’t even look like who we perceive ourselves to be, and yet, there they are, staring right into us.
The looking glass of joy is one that has been difficult to come across within my jagged mental hallways, but is an emotion constantly sought after. With this year, the myriad of struggles we all face has taken its toll, and feelings of elation seem foreign to our current states of being. And yet, I search, we search.
Oftentimes, in this daily trek for a comfortable and happy mind, I find that joy engulfs me when I least expect it. Initially so far away and distant, it then climbs on me like a fantastically invasive vine, and I cannot see anything except the happiness that surrounds me.
I remember certain moments in my own life when this has proven itself to be true. I remember 10 years ago in the springtime, when I first started renting the home I live in now. I laid out on my sofa, and stared out the windows into the wild greenery that was erupting in the garden. My eyes dashed around in my new home, and I felt a delicious swelling in my chest, one that I knew was joy. I whispered to my then-partner, who was on the sofa next to me, “I’m happy.” And I smiled, trusting that something beautiful was going to follow me.
For this photoshoot, that was my main focus, that initial concept. To show that gradual growing of joy, a perfect and pure emotion that leaves you with an acute awareness of your capacity for hope. That no matter how difficult things may become, no matter how desperate your search or how large greed may grow within our material world, there is an emotion that cannot be bought or sold, and asks for nothing more than for you to feel it and to pay attention.
Often as a photographer, it can be a challenge to keep the peace of your mind when you are working. I’ve felt it necessary to swim against the tidal wave of frustrations and doubts that come within the creative world. I’ve had to unlearn a large amount of things.
One of those things to unlearn is fear. When a client is involved on a shoot, there is always the crippling paranoia of looking professional enough, or the pantomime of competency. I’ve found these inner charades to be the antithesis of the creative work. We are not meant to feel fear in creation, but the strong bond and purity of collaboration. This is what I felt on this shoot with my friend Crystal.
I loved every moment of this shoot, even within its challenges and the inevitable hiccups that come in preproduction. I realized that when you work with the water instead of against it, it can take you only to one place. A place where you aren’t fearful, but you are delivered back to the home within yourself. Because of this, I am ever grateful to this day, and all the incredible friends that made this possible. I cannot thank them enough, and will always look back on this day with a twinkle in my eye, and a jubilant heart.
Related posts
Daydreaming by the Japan Sea
The sun beat down on us as we carried our strange array of items to the shore. We were in the deep c
Sada Anand
Nice words too!